Since founding on July 01, 1921, the Communist Party of China (CPC) has taken an extra ordinary brilliant course of 90 years and become the biggest party in the world with its members increasing from about 50 in 1921 to over 80 million by 2011. The CPC has the experience of 60 years as the ruling party and its history of 90 years is also the history which closely interconnectswith the fate of Chinese people, the rejuvenation of Chinese nation and the development and progress of China. In early 20th century, China endured both the aggression and ravage of imperialist powersand the feudal autocratic oppression, which brought grave disaster and extreme poverty to Chinese nation and people.Under such circumstances, the CPC was born and bravely took on the historic task of leading the Chinese people to realize the national independence, country's prosperity and people's happiness.
In the past 9 decades, the CPC led the Chinese people in overcoming all hardships as well as obstacles and has achieved the great victory of the revolution, construction and reform. After the realization of national independence and people's liberation, the People's Republic of China was founded in October, 1949, the Chinese people have since then stood up and the Chinese nation stood firmly on her own feet in the family of world nations with a completely new face. The Chinese people, under the leadership of the CPC, has established the socialist system, conducted the most extensive and most profound social transformation in the history of China, built an independent and relatively complete national economic system and created a new stage in the cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics, which opened up a historic prospect for China.
The CPC united with and led the Chinese people of all ethnic groups to comprehensively advance therefrom, opening-up and the modernization drive, which promoted the rapid economic growth and constantly increased the China's overall national strength and international influence. In 1949, China's GDP was merely about US$18 billion; however, the GDP reached over US$ 6 trillion by 2010, with the growth of nearly 600 times, which made China rank the second in the world in terms of the overall economic volume along with the significant improvement of people's living standards. In 1949, China had the population of 450 million, 370 million of which lived below the poverty line. In 2010, the population has exceeded 1.3 billion, while the number of people in poverty was reduced to 150 million.
Science and technology is the first productivity. The CPC attaches the great importance to the supporting and guiding role played by science and technology to the economic development and put forward the strategy of "rejuvenating China through science and technology". The number of scientific and technological personnel has dramatically increased from 50,000 in 1949 to 42 million by 2010. The development of science and technology has achieved the fruitful results. From atomic and hydrogen bombs and man-made satellites to manned spaceflight, moon probe program, super computer as well as hybrid rice, China has achieved a series of remarkable gains in science and technology, which greatly promoted the development level of China's economy and extremely improved the people's living standards.
Education is the foundation for future development. The CPC coordinated to formulate and implement long-term education development program. The comprehensive implementation of compulsory education free of charge for urban and rural areas guaranteed all school-aged children to access to education with no charge, which has benefited 160 million people. In 1949, the illiteracy rate in China was as high as 80%, but nowadays the number has been reduce to 4% based on the latest official statistics. The secondary vocational education is free to the rural poor families and urban low-income families as well as students studying agriculture-related subjects. The quality and level of higher education have been comprehensively promoted and the innovative capability of the universities has also been enhanced.
As a Chinese saying goesÿ"To be rich, build roads first". The CPC vigorously develops transportation sector that affects the economic development and improvement of livelihood. In 1949, China has just only few railways with the total mileage of 23,000 kilometers. By 2010, China's operating mileage of railways has reached 85,000 kilometers, where the mileage of high-speed railways accounted for over 10,000 kilometers. The technology of high-speed railway ranks the first in the world. Moreover, the mileage of road has reached nearly 4 million kilometers, which basically realized the goal of accessible roads for every village.
To speed up the development of the social undertakings and practically safeguard and improve the livelihoods, the Communist Party of China actively and steadily push forward the reform of the medical and health system and comprehensively build the basic medical insurance systems for urban residents as well as the new rural cooperation medical system, which covered 432 million urban residents and 835 million rural people. The culture and sports undertakings have been moving ahead and the cultural and art creation became increasingly prosperous. The excellent films and TV programs reflecting the characteristics of the times and people's life have been emerging one after another. China has become a big sports country and successfully hosted the Olympic Games in Beijing. The national fitness has become popular.
The Communist Party of China attachesgreat importance to developing foreign relations since the date of birth. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the work of foreign affairs of the CPC has always been the main component of national overall diplomacy, which aimsat promoting mutual understanding, friendship, communication and cooperation between China and other countries in the world as well as their people and playing an active role in safeguarding the international and regional peace and stability. By 2010, the CPC has maintained different forms of contacts and interactions with over 160 parties and organizations in the world. In the future, under the spirit of the four principles of the inter-party relations of "independence, full equality, mutual respect and non-interference in internal affairs", the CPC will continue to broadly and deeply develop the friendly relations and practical cooperation with various political parties around the world in order to better promote the relations between China and other countries and make greater contribution to world peace, development as well as the cause of human progress.